Automatic meter reading (AMR) is a technology that supports the automatic collection of consumption, diagnostic and status data from meters, such as those associated with electrical, gas and water customers. AMR saves money by obviating the need to periodically manually read meters, and also allows consumables to be billed based in near real-time with respect to consumption.
Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) provides a more advanced technology, including two-way communication between a data collector (e.g., a root node of a network or a cellular router, etc.) and a plurality of smart meters. Thus, smart meters potentially provide two-way communication from the location of the consumer to a head office of a utility company. Such connectivity is useful for many purposes, including billing issues, market-driven pricing based in part on time of day and peak loads, consumer education and feed-back, etc.
In the context of electrical power supply, AMR and AMI, together with other electrical grid elements, may constitute a smart grid. Within a smart grid, electrical consumption and supply may be based in part on a two-way flow of information about the behavior of suppliers and consumers. Such a smart grid infrastructure increases efficiency, reliability and stability, etc., of the electrical system. Accordingly, the smart grid is a fundamental re-engineering of the electrical supply industry and the customers it serves, the scope of which has and will result in a major investment in infrastructure.
As AMR, AMI and the smart grid have advanced, and more components have been added to the grid and associated network, considerable communication traffic has arisen. In particular, large numbers of communication devices are added to not only the electric grid infrastructure, but also to infrastructures providing natural gas, water and other consumables (e.g., heat, steam, etc.). The network traffic includes data packets that are transmitted and received by grid components according to one or more protocols and standards. The communication may be made over both wired (e.g., power line communication (PLC)) and non-wired (e.g., radio frequency (RF) transmissions) networks.
Due to the configuration of such networks, particularly including those supplying natural gas, many network devices are battery powered. The batteries powering such devices may be expected to have multi-year life times. However, the volume of data moving through the network may make network device design difficult. Additionally, many protocols and standards impose a heavy overhead to devices that communicate within AMR, AMI and smart grid environments. This volume of data, and associated overhead, may reduce the lifespan of battery powered devices.